Richard Upjohn Light

Meader had to take flying lessons and learn Morse code in able to become her husband's co-pilot, navigator, and radio operator. During training, she gave birth to her first son, Christopher. In an interview with Encore Magazine in 2006, when asked why she decided to take the journey, she replied: "It just seemed like a great adventure – something I wanted to do. Why? I'm not certain, other than we both knew we would be doing something that hadn't been done before."

Light and Meader divorced in the early 1960s. He served as a member of the Yale University Council from 1956 to 1963 and was the founder of the Richard U. Light Foundation. In 1962, Light created an undergraduate scholarship awarded annually.

After the flight, Light wrote the book Focus on Africa, which included his wife's photos and published by the American Geographical Society. The book was only the second which included aerial photos. A 1941 review of the book by Mary Jobe Akeley of the New York Times called the pictures "superb".

The couple's original plan was to fly into Asia; however, this was not accomplished due to the damaging of the plane and Meader's pregnancy with a second child. The two returned to Kalamazoo in February 1938. In all, Meader took over 1,000 photographs in her two flights.

The two Lights took off out of Kalamazoo in September 1937 in a Bellanca monoplane, whose cabin lacked heat and pressurization. To survive, they had to breathe oxygen from a tank with wooden mouthpieces. Wearing a fur coat and a boot, Meader took photographs out of a window frame.

Dr. Light was well known among flying enthusiasts for his 1934 around-the-world flight and wanted to approximate the same to celebrate their marriage. While planning the trip, many parts of the world had not been photographed from above and the American Geographical Society encouraged photographic flights to build an archive of aerial views. His idea was to fly over areas of South America and Africa that had never been captured on film from the air and Meader was happy to go along with it.

After studying at Culver Military Academy, he earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1924 and a M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1928. He was director of the surgical laboratory at the Yale School of Medicine from 1933 to 1935. From 1937 to 1968, he was a director of the Upjohn Company, the pharmaceuticals company founded by his grandfather, William E. Upjohn. In 1937, he married Mary Meader in Maryland.

Richard Upjohn Light (1902–1994) was an American neurosurgeon, aviator, cinematographer, and former president of the American Geographical Society.